Student stress must be addressed, York University professor says

Knitting needles for troubled boys, exercise bikes at the back of a class, soundproofing headphones to block out distraction, a weighted blanket for a child who needs to calm down. These are some of the cutting-edge classroom tools of a new campaign to fight what York University psychology Professor Stuart Shanker calls one of the toughest problems facing Canadian students from kindergarten to grad school: stress. As scientists discover links between emotional well-being and how we learn, governments must shift their focus from test scores to temperament, said Shanker in the Toronto Star Nov. 9. Read full story.

Paul Axelrod: Ignore university rankings
“Before you race out to see who stacks up, consider this: Rankings are endemically flawed,” wrote York University Faculty of Education Professor Paul Axelrod in the National Post Nov. 10. “They have some entertainment value, they pander to our hunger for simple bromides, but they shouldn’t be used by families anxiously planning their children’s academic futures.” Read full story.

The face Canada showed the world
If you haven’t seen it yet, there’s an amazing video you should check out online, reported the Globe and Mail Nov. 8. It was made a week after the attack on Parliament. In it, a York University student named Omar Albach and two friends set out to gauge people’s attitudes toward Muslims. They took their experiment to the streets of Hamilton, on the eve of Corporal Nathan Cirillo’s funeral, where emotions were running high…. What they got wasn’t quite what they expected. Read full story.

Ready to retire? How to weather a market plunge
Moshe Milevsky, a professor at York University’s Schulich School of Business in Toronto, explored this issue in a 2006 paper titled “Retirement Ruin and the Sequencing of Returns.” His solution was to use a portion of a person’s savings to buy products that would guarantee a certain income, reported the Globe and Mail Nov. 19. Read full story.

Grits reject change to lawsuit limitation bill
Allan MacMaster says a government bill that removes the statute of limitations for victims of sexual assault to pursue civil action is flawed because it won’t apply retroactively, reported the Chronicle Herald Nov. 7. The Tory justice critic recently talked about support for abuse survivors as people who were on his mind as he drafted an amendment to the Limitation of Actions Act that would remove the time limit for existing victims to seek civil action…. MacMaster said he sought legal advice from Jonathan Rosenthal, an adjunct professor at York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto who has done pro bono work for victims. Read full story.